Major sucess with higher calories!

mom2kea

I am still trying to figure all this out, my head is swimming. I read heybales lengthy post on this over a week ago, and I can't remember what it told me to eat, but do remember being shocked at how much it was. Plus, I was very unsure of how to judge my activity level. i am a stay at home mom, and do light housework every day, but also spend a good many hours at my computer, sitting at practices/games, etc. I exercise 5-6 days a week for at leas an hour. Usually 2 days of hour long high intensity cardio(step), 2-3 days of Body Pump(one hour strength interval class) one day of golf where I walk my clubs 18 holes. Don't know if that's moderately active or more. I have lost 58lbs so far on a pretty low calorie diet. I usually eat 1200-1500 a day. Since joining MFP a month ago, I have started eating a bit more on days I exercise, but on days I don't I'm finding it harder to stay at 1200. I want to lose another 10-20. My daughter has been struggling as well. She exercises intensely 5 days a week, stays under her MFP calorie goal, and can't drop a pound. But when I showed her the post she said there was no way she could lose weight on 2000 calories a day. ACK! So confusing!

kjpersich

I'm giving it a go. I got in touch with Helloitsdan and he put me at 1900 calories a day, 2500 if I do heavy lifting. Honestly, I'm ready for this. I have been starving myself for a decade and I swear my lack of concentration and brain fog is from starving myself. I'm even going to up my carbs. I have been low carb for 10 years as well. I'm ready for my energy to return as well as an improve in mood. Feeding my body should help discourage the urge to binge eat. When you are starving, all you can think about is sitting in front of the TV with a box of Cheezits. Thanks Helloitsdan! And Heybales, I did have my numbers wrong. I was adding 20% to my BMR.

Sarauk2sf

I am still trying to figure all this out, my head is swimming. I read heybales lengthy post on this over a week ago, and I can't remember what it told me to eat, but do remember being shocked at how much it was. Plus, I was very unsure of how to judge my activity level. i am a stay at home mom, and do light housework every day, but also spend a good many hours at my computer, sitting at practices/games, etc. I exercise 5-6 days a week for at leas an hour. Usually 2 days of hour long high intensity cardio(step), 2-3 days of Body Pump(one hour strength interval class) one day of golf where I walk my clubs 18 holes. Don't know if that's moderately active or more. I have lost 58lbs so far on a pretty low calorie diet. I usually eat 1200-1500 a day. Since joining MFP a month ago, I have started eating a bit more on days I exercise, but on days I don't I'm finding it harder to stay at 1200. I want to lose another 10-20. My daughter has been struggling as well. She exercises intensely 5 days a week, stays under her MFP calorie goal, and can't drop a pound. But when I showed her the post she said there was no way she could lose weight on 2000 calories a day. ACK! So confusing!

Depending on your size, weight and activity levels you absolutely can lose on 2000 calories - there are loads of women on MFP that have. I understand the trepidation, especially if you have been on a much lower target for a while - it seems counter-intuitive at first.

I find that the easiest thing to do is to put your activity level assuming no exercising/workouts and then log your workouts in MFP and eat these calories back. Your activity level seems to be at least lightly active before exercise.

I do not know all your stats and so cannot say what your calories level should be, but, for example, I am 5 6" and 178lb and am on 1700 before exercises with a lightly active non workout activity level. When I exercise, I end up nearer or above 2000.

babareeba

buuuuuump

RonneyMichelle

I started out at 1200 calories in January, I've lost 26 pounds since then. I also contacted Dan just a day or two ago and upping my calories not because I haven't been seeing results but because I am hungry and a little afraid of eventually stalling. I'm hoping to get ahead of something like that. I am though, so scared of upping my calories. Yesterday was my regular once a week meal out and we went to Ryan's. I did log everything and hope it is somewhat accurate and hit around 1500 for the day, leaving me about 300 and then my exercise to make up for any of the logging of Ryan's food in the database being off since I couldn't measure exactly. I am up today by a few ounces and that freaks me out.
I know it shouldn't. But you know how the mind works!
I'm going to give upping the cals for a few weeks and see, it's still so hard to believe since I had huge success with the 1200 calories. But of course I'm wondering how much muscle I lost now
Continually learning!

Sarauk2sf

I started out at 1200 calories in January, I've lost 26 pounds since then. I also contacted Dan just a day or two ago and upping my calories not because I haven't been seeing results but because I am hungry and a little afraid of eventually stalling. I'm hoping to get ahead of something like that. I am though, so scared of upping my calories. Yesterday was my regular once a week meal out and we went to Ryan's. I did log everything and hope it is somewhat accurate and hit around 1500 for the day, leaving me about 300 and then my exercise to make up for any of the logging of Ryan's food in the database being off since I couldn't measure exactly. I am up today by a few ounces and that freaks me out.
I know it shouldn't. But you know how the mind works!
I'm going to give upping the cals for a few weeks and see, it's still so hard to believe since I had huge success with the 1200 calories. But of course I'm wondering how much muscle I lost now
Continually learning!

Well done for upping your calories - and hang in there. You may see a slight increase of a week or two. Also don't worry about a few ounces - us women are cursed with fluctuating due to water weight - so a few ounces could just be that - and its a really tiny gain anyway (althought I can relate to the feeling).......you may want to steer clear of the scales for a couple of weeks.....good luck

boogiewoman1

Love 30 day shred.! Jillian rocks. I was advised to eat more also. I'm going to try it.

jenallman

Freedieting.com has a good calorie calculator that will tell you how many calories you need per day and how many to eat to lose weight.

alli_baba

I'm giving it a go. I got in touch with Helloitsdan and he put me at 1900 calories a day, 2500 if I do heavy lifting. Honestly, I'm ready for this. I have been starving myself for a decade and I swear my lack of concentration and brain fog is from starving myself. I'm even going to up my carbs. I have been low carb for 10 years as well. I'm ready for my energy to return as well as an improve in mood. Feeding my body should help discourage the urge to binge eat. When you are starving, all you can think about is sitting in front of the TV with a box of Cheezits. Thanks Helloitsdan! And Heybales, I did have my numbers wrong. I was adding 20% to my BMR.

Hi. I read your story and I'm your height (5'7"), about your weight (125 lbs) and about your activity level -- I upped my calories to 1800-2000 calories when I hit a plateau a few months ago. I lost weight (I'm at my goal weight), so it works. However, I did gain about 3-4 lbs the first month, but shed it all and more during the 2nd and 3rd months (I didn't change anything in terms of calories or activity). And I've never been low carb (I've heard that low carbers do gain weight at first when they up their carbs). I'm just writing this so if you gain weight at first (you may not), don't freak out. Just give it some time and it should work out.

heybales

Heydales,

Would you look on page 16 and see if my calculations are correct? Thanks

Ok so I am still a little confused I want to make sure I am getting this.
I am 5 foot 2 I weight 127lbs
my fat percentage is 36.1 according to the military tool on fat 2 fit
I then plugged that into the BMR and for moderate I have kids and work out 5 days a week using Chalean extreme a combo of weight training and cardio. It says I should be consuming 2072 calories a day. Is this correct? Now my question is do I need to net 2072 calories? Which means I need to eat back all my exercise calories or do I just need to consume this many calories in food and then my work out will be my deficit calories? I would like to get back down to 115lbs but if I don't lose pounds I am okay with that as long as I lose inches and body fat? So will someone please clarify all this for me and make sure that I am on the right track. Thank you all for your input and help.

Sounds like if you selected Moderate Active, or rounding up towards next level actually, you would be correct at 2100. At long as that was goal weight you plugged in.
That is your daily eat. Already feeding the workout in that total, so no eatback.

To estimate weight loss potential, add 20% to that figure for current weight TDEE, or rerun the calc with goal weight the same as current weight. Now current TDEE minus eating = deficit potential. But that doesn't go anywhere, that is just for your knowledge.

And yes, with that workout routine, and finally feeding the exercise, your body will improve as you lose fat and weight may not change much.

Remember, diet is for weight loss, exercise is for body shaping and heart health and to support weight loss. But they are different goals.

mom2kea

[/quote]
Depending on your size, weight and activity levels you absolutely can lose on 2000 calories - there are loads of women on MFP that have. I understand the trepidation, especially if you have been on a much lower target for a while - it seems counter-intuitive at first.

I find that the easiest thing to do is to put your activity level assuming no exercising/workouts and then log your workouts in MFP and eat these calories back. Your activity level seems to be at least lightly active before exercise.

I do not know all your stats and so cannot say what your calories level should be, but, for example, I am 5 6" and 178lb and am on 1700 before exercises with a lightly active non workout activity level. When I exercise, I end up nearer or above 2000.
[/quote]

I am 5'9 (used to be closer to 5'10'', I seem to be shrinking, lol) I currently weight 174, and want to get to 160, I'm 41. I did my best to accurately get my averages, and also did your method of basically saying I do 12/resting/12/very light. According to that I should be eating a MINIMUM of 1786, not counting any exercise. I average earning around 3000 cal/week. No matter what method I use I continually come to around 2200 cal/day. Wow. Even when I eat my exercise calories I NEVER go over 1900. It really is a bit scary to think about eating that much. I desperately want to be at goal weight by Memorial Day. I don't want to back slide. I've made so much progress. Not sure what I'm going to do.

megsmom2

:drinker: Woohoo! :drinker:

Welcome to the dark side, where we really do have cookies, and have enough calories to eat them.
[/quote

Laughing hard...because its true!]

LinzCurlyQ

:bigsmile:

mandachristine

bump

Birder150

I averaged 2125 daily calories for this past week and I'm down 2.2 lbs since last Sunday. (251.8 - 249.6)
I didn't do any added exercise above my daily activity level (lightly active).

I averaged my calories for the past month and it's been at 2010 per day with just a couple of walks thrown in.
I've had 2 3000+ calorie days.
As of today, I've lost 9.6 lbs since Feb. 20/12.

Higher calories FTW!

thomassd1969

I started Jan 10th and was eating 1200 calories to reach my weight goal by June like MFP said to do but I was losing nothing or very little at all. I used a different calories calculator and it said I needed 1900 cal a day just resting so I reduced it to 1650 and I have since lost 16 pounds.

Broken420

Awesome! I upped mine as well and reaped the rewards!

Jgen62

Bump ~ upping my calorie intake!!

Ebilfairylight

You guys seem to be using higher numbers for calorie upping than I've seen! I want to do this the right way! I weigh 70kg currently at 159cm tall with a goal of getting to 55-60kg. I would put my activity as sedentary to be safe as I am a student. How much should I be eating?

lisa28115

You guys seem to be using higher numbers for calorie upping than I've seen! I want to do this the right way! I weigh 70kg currently at 159cm tall with a goal of getting to 55-60kg. I would put my activity as sedentary to be safe as I am a student. How much should I be eating?

http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/

go to this site and find out your BMR and it will give the number calories u should eat

Jgen62

Yipper skipper! another really good way to do it is figure out what your calories would be to maintain your goal weight and set that as your daily intake and don't worry about eating exercise cals back, if you do it's ok but just concentrate on that maintenance calorie intake and the results are wonderful!!!
Peace! :flowerforyou:

briantwigley

It pays to do some research first. I made the same mistake but After checking it out I was eating 600 too little.

marshallexi

I do not know all your stats and so cannot say what your calories level should be, but, for example, I am 5 6" and 178lb and am on 1700 before exercises with a lightly active non workout activity level. When I exercise, I end up nearer or above 2000.

Thank you for posting! This has inspired me to up my calories. I'm the same height and 12lbs lighter but last week after a heavy gym schedule and only eating between 900 - 1300 calories (net) I felt like I was about to collapse with exhaustion and brain fog.

I'm giving 1700 a go, with the increase going on protein.

Ebilfairylight

Wow: I've had a look at that fat2fit website and the formulas for how many calories you should be eating and I'm confused as to how they've come to that number? They've given me a BMR of around 1300 yet said that I should be eating close to 1700 a day to lose 15kg? :S

Ebilfairylight

Also: Does the calorie count recommended there include excersize calories or should you be eating them back on top of that?

ladyraven68

Also: Does the calorie count recommended there include excersize calories or should you be eating them back on top of that?

on the fat2fit site it gave you different choices depending on your activities.

if you chose the sedentary one, then yes, eat your exercise calories too.
if you chose the option that reflects your workout levels, then no, don't eat them back.

Ebilfairylight

Okay awesome! I'm goign to go with the sedentry one but it is hard to tell being a student. I spend most of my time sitting in lectures/driving/sitting on my bed studying but I also work 20 hours a week at McDonalds which is quite a fast paced and energy consuming job. But I don't think that that is enough to raise me to the next activity level on a reliable basis?

If I am eating back my excersize calories, to get to a net of my sedentry BMR will it matter if some weeks I am burning more through general activity?

I must say, i LOVE the support on these forums. Even for a poor confused soul with me who's had a bad metabolism for as long as I can remember!

vannie18

bump

rchambers2072

Saved to read later

lleabrooks

I'm sure Dan's been busy! lol